Comments on: Competitiveness rankingshttp://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2009/09/08/competitiveness-rankings/
A slice of lime in the sodaSun, 26 Oct 2014 19:05:02 +0000hourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.8.3By: Grrrr...http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2009/09/08/competitiveness-rankings/comment-page-1/#comment-6554
Wed, 09 Sep 2009 17:26:13 +0000http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2009/09/08/competitiveness-rankings/#comment-6554Why don’t they call it for what it is: “The list of countries most likely to suck vast wealth from other nations at the expense of millions of human beings and not have any conscience whatsoever at the epic human misery (not to mention the environmental degradation) it causes.”

Seems like the lower you are on the list, the more likely its citizens can wake up not feeling completely filthy about themselves.

]]>By: Lance Knobelhttp://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2009/09/08/competitiveness-rankings/comment-page-1/#comment-6532
Wed, 09 Sep 2009 01:50:50 +0000http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2009/09/08/competitiveness-rankings/#comment-6532Oh, they go back way before 1996. That just happens to be one I still have in my bookshelves. Stephane Garelli, now at IMD, started the World Competitiveness Report in the early ’80s, I think.
]]>By: jgohttp://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2009/09/08/competitiveness-rankings/comment-page-1/#comment-6521
Tue, 08 Sep 2009 20:18:36 +0000http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2009/09/08/competitiveness-rankings/#comment-6521GIGO. They need to ask someone who does not have a personal financial interest in further tilting the playing fields of the economy into their own pockets. “If you’ll only make these changes to drain more productivity into my pocket, ‘competitiveness’ will be better. wink wink nudge nudge”
]]>By: Lance Knobelhttp://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2009/09/08/competitiveness-rankings/comment-page-1/#comment-6515
Tue, 08 Sep 2009 18:58:33 +0000http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2009/09/08/competitiveness-rankings/#comment-6515The competitiveness rankings go back much further than 2001. I have the report from 1996 (edited by me) sitting in front of me. Singapore 1st, Hong Kong 2nd. US was fourth and Switzerland was 6th.

The methodology has changed at various points over the years. It all started as the World Competitiveness Report, and was a joint venture between WEF and IMD, the Swiss business school. But there was a falling out and competitiveness in competitiveness reports resulted. So IMD went on to publish its own World Competitiveness Yearbook (still going) and WEF renamed its effort the Global Competitiveness Report.

The most interesting aspect of being involved with this in the ’90s was the tussle we had with MIT economist Paul Krugman, who thought the whole idea of measuring country competitiveness was anathema. Whatever happened to him?

]]>By: Matthewhttp://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2009/09/08/competitiveness-rankings/comment-page-1/#comment-6514
Tue, 08 Sep 2009 18:49:18 +0000http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2009/09/08/competitiveness-rankings/#comment-6514And historically they have no relationship with future growth (which presumably is the point of them). See this post looking at the indices in the early 1990s (which Japan always topped!)